Aquinas And Problems Of His Time

The title of this book calls to mind the colloquium, organised from May 16 to May 19, 1974, in Louvain, by the Institute of Medieval Studies, in collaboration with the Higher Institute of Philosophy and the Faculty of Theology, on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the death of St Thomas. The book tries to approach the historical context of Aquinas's thought; it endeavours to understand the thinking of St Thomas against his socio-cultural background and to bring to light his attitudes and his reactions to the problems of his time.

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Part One: The History (What do we know?) This brief historical introduction to Aquinas assesses his impact on the world as it was at the time and outlines the key ideas and values connected with him. It explores the social, political and religious factors that formed the context of his life and writings, and considers how those factors affected the way he was initially received. Part Two: The Legacy (Why does it matter?) This second part surveys the intellectual and cultural ‘afterlife’ of Aquinas, exploring the ways in which his impact has lasted. Why does he continue to be so influential, and what aspects of his legacy are likely to endure beyond today and into the future? The book has a brief chronology at the front plus a glossary of key terms and a list of further reading at the back. Contents: Preface Chronology Part One: The History 1. Who Was Aquinas? 2. Some Basic Words and Concepts 3. Why Believe in God? 4. What is God? 5. The Christian God 6. Human Beings Part Two: The Legacy 7. From the Time of Aquinas to the Twenty-First Century 8. Thinking About Aquinas Today Glossary of Key Terms Notes Further Reading Index

The Arguments of Aquinas is intended for readers with philosophical interests, who may not be specialists in medieval philosophy. Some think that a medieval saint must be, as such, wrong, dated, and boring; others feel that a saint, any saint, must be right, relevant, and inspirational. Both groups are likely to misread Aquinas, if indeed they read him at all. The works of great philosophers are products of their times, but that does not lessen their value for us. We profit by reading the works of St Thomas in the same interested but critical way that we read the works of our contemporaries. MacIntosh does not hesitated to compare Thomas's arguments with those of later philosophers as well as with those of his contemporaries and earlier philosophers. He chooses topics from a variety of still interesting problem areas: the existence and attributes of God, including God's foreknowledge and human free will, causality and the origin of the universe, time and necessity, human souls, angels, and the problem of evil. Additionally, the volume looks at his views on honesty and lying, and on human sexuality, on which he is, as ever, philosophically interesting whether or not we accept his conclusions.

Thomas Aquinas has long been understood to have reconciled faith and reason. Typically, he is understood as having provided justification for faith by means of proof, particularly, that the Five Ways prove the existence of God. Under this interpretation, faith becomes a species of justified belief, and the justification for faith rests upon the success of the Five Ways (or, alternatively, on the success of other justificatory evidence). In this book, Creighton Rosental argues that Aquinas¿s account of faith is not one of justified belief, at least as it is understood in contemporary philosophy. Instead, Rosental argues, faith has its own basis for epistemic ¿reasonableness¿ ¿ a reasonableness that does not derive from ordinary evidence or proof. Rather than requiring evidence accessible to the natural light of reason, Aquinas holds that faith has its own sort of ¿evidence¿¿that which results from the light of faith. Aquinas ¿Aristotelianizes¿ faith and argues that faith has the Aristotelian epistemic virtue of certitude, and in so doing reconciles faith and Aristotelian reason, at least as Aristotle was understood by Medieval philosophers. This reconciliation resolves important tensions between Aristotelian science and Christian doctrine. Further, Rosental examines three contemporary accounts of what counts as an epistemically ¿responsible¿ belief (namely, justified belief, practical rationality, and warrant) and argue that under Aquinas¿s account, faith should be counted as rational, and in an important, though modified sense, as justified. Rosental¿s book is an erudite and accessible reading of this most fundamental issue in Thomistic studies.

Provides a sustained account of how the thought of Aquinas may be used in conjunction with contemporary science to deepen our understanding of divine action and address such issues as creation, providence, prayer, and miracles.

Brian Davies offers the first in-depth study of Saint Thomas Aquinas's thoughts on God and evil, revealing that Aquinas's thinking about God and evil can be traced through his metaphysical philosophy, his thoughts on God and creation, and his writings about Christian revelation and the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. Davies first gives an introduction to Aquinas's philosophical theology, as well as a nuanced analysis of the ways in which Aquinas's writings have been considered over time. For hundreds of years scholars have argued that Aquinas's views on God and evil were original and different from those of his contemporaries. Davies shows that Aquinas's views were by modern standards very original, but that in their historical context they were more traditional than many scholars since have realized. Davies also provides insight into what we can learn from Aquinas's philosophy. Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil is a clear and engaging guide for anyone who struggles with the relation of God and theology to the problem of evil.